Saint Alphonsus Mary de Liguori, Bishop, Doctor

He was a Neapolitan lawyer who lost a court case in a spectacular fashion, when it turned out that a key document in his case had been misinterpreted by him and in fact proved his opponent’s case instead. He immediately left the law and studied for the priesthood. But God is not proud, and accepts people even on the rebound: Alphonsus became a priest.He preached in the rural districts around Naples, and it was his boast that he never delivered a sermon that the poorest old woman in the congregation could not understand. His bishop asked him to establish an order of missionaries to work in the countryside, and the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists) was formally established in 1749.He was a bishop from 1762 to 1775, insisting on the dignified and unhurried celebration of the Mass and the firm treatment of persistent wrongdoers.The Redemptorists proved to be a quarrelsome congregation: their formal establishment had been delayed by more than a decade because of internal dissension. After his retirement Alphonsus had to try to make peace within the congregation. Unfortunately his old failing returned and he signed a new Constitution for the Redemptorists without reading it properly (though, to be fair to him, he was 80 and in poor health at the time). The result was that the Redemptorists split into two separate congregations, both of whom rejected Alphonsus: peace was not restored until some time after his death.Nevertheless, in spite of all this storm and trouble, Alphonsus lived an exceptionally holy life. He was also an outstanding moral theologian, and won back sinners to the fold by patience and moderation. His work needs to be better known today, when there seems to be no rational middle course between puritanism and permissiveness.See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

He was born in Sardinia and brought up in Rome, and later (in around 340) was made the first bishop of Vercelli in Piedmont. He lived in a community with his diocesan priests, the first bishop ever to do so.He was a strong supporter of orthodoxy, and in 355 was sent into exile by the Emperor for refusing to sign the condemnation of St Athanasius that had been passed by the Council of Milan. He was in exile for six years, harshly treated by those who had charge of him. On his release he worked hard for unity, but in vain.He co-operated with St Hilary in fighting Arianism, and eventually died peacefully in Vercelli, where a manuscript of the Gospels in his handwriting is preserved.

(St Peter Julian Eymard (1811 - 1868))

He was born in La Mure in France. He became a parish priest in 1834 and joined the Marists five years later. He fostered Eucharistic adoration throughout his life and founded a religious order of priest-adorers of the Holy Eucharist who came to be known as the Priests of the Blessed Sacrament. He was a great supporter of frequent Communion at a time when the idea had not yet been widely accepted by the Church.See also the article in Wikipedia.

2015-07-29T20:01:48ZMon 3 Augusthttp://www.universalis.com/Europe.Poland/20150803/
Monday of week 18 in Ordinary Time

Monday of week 18 in Ordinary Time

After pursuing a legal career and being governor of a province, he was consecrated bishop of Auxerre in Gaul. In 429 he was selected as one of the leaders of a mission to Britain to combat the growing heresy of Pelagianism. His mission was successful, and he also led the native Britons to a victory against the invading pagan Picts and Saxons. He visited Britain a second time in the 440s, to combat Pelagianism once more, and he died at Ravenna in the late 440s, while on a mission to the emperor to obtain pardon for the citizens of Armorica, which had rebelled against the Roman government. See also the article in Wikipedia.

(St Oswald (c.604 - 642))

Saint Oswald was born at the very beginning of the 7th century. He was the youngest son of the pagan Ethelfrid, the first king of a united Northumbria. After his father’s death in battle, the young Oswald fled to Iona for safety and was baptised there and became a devoted Christian.In 633 Oswald returned to Northumbria to regain his father’s kingdom. It was said that he set up a wooden cross as his standard and dedicated himself and his people to God’s protection before engaging himself in battle with the occupying Welsh King Cadwallon, not far from the present Hexham. He defeated and killed Cadwallon and at once invited the monks from Iona to begin the evangelisation of his kingdom which extended from the Forth to the Humber. After initial difficulties, the monk Aidan was sent to lead these Irish missionaries and Oswald found him to be both a valued adviser and a good friend. Oswald took seriously the work of bringing Christianity to his people and was even known to accompany Aidan on his missionary expeditions and to act as interpreter during the time Aidan was learning the language of the English. He was also well known both for his personal prayerfulness and his charity to those in need.Sadly the reign of King Oswald lasted only eight years. In 642 he was killed in battle by Penda the pagan king of the Mercians. It was said that as he fell in death he was heard to pray for those who died with him. Oswald was a popular hero and his reputation as a saint was widespread even into mainland Europe.

Middlesbrough Ordo

(Saint Æthelwold (-984))

Together with St Dunstan, Ethelwold (or Æthelwold) ranks as one of the great figures of 10th-century monastic reform. Born in Winchester sometime between 904 and 909, he spent his youth at the court of King Athelstan. He became Prior of Glastonbury and in 955 received from King Ædred the Abbey of Abingdon which he re-established. On 29 November 963 he was ordained Bishop of Winchester by St Dunstan. There he installed monks in the cathedral, and restored the two Winchester foundations of the New Minster and Nunnaminster. He also restored the monasteries at Milton (Dorset) and Chertsey, and made new foundations at Ely, Peterborough and Thorney (East Anglia), in the course of which he made himself unpopular with secular clergy who were turned out of monasteries to make way for genuine monks.He was a renowned scholar, compiling the Regularis Concordia and translating the Rule of Benedict into Old English. He used some of the wealth he accumulated to build new churches and was a great patron of ecclesiastical art. He died on 1 August 984 at Beddington in Surrey, and was buried in the Old Minster at Winchester. After a miraculous cure attributed to him some twelve years later, his body was moved from the crypt to the choir and he was recognized as a saint, though never formally canonized.

Saint John Mary Vianney, Priest

He was the son of a peasant farmer, and a slow and unpromising candidate for the priesthood: he was eventually ordained on account of his devoutness rather than any achievement or promise.In 1818 he was sent to be the parish priest of Ars-en-Dombes, an isolated village some distance from Lyon, and remained there for the rest of his life because his parishioners would not let him leave. He was a noted preacher, and a celebrated confessor: such was his fame, and his reputation for insight into his penitents’ souls and their futures, that he had to spend up to eighteen hours a day in the confessional, so great was the demand. The tens of thousands of people who came to visit this obscure parish priest turned Ars into a place of pilgrimage.The French State recognised his eminence by awarding him the medal of the Légion d’Honneur in 1848, and he sold it and gave the money to the poor.See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

2015-07-29T20:01:48ZWed 5 Augusthttp://www.universalis.com/Europe.Poland/20150805/
Wednesday of week 18 in Ordinary Time, or Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major

Wednesday of week 18 in Ordinary Time, or Dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major

The Council of Ephesus in 431 formally proclaimed the mother of Jesus as the Mother of God, and the church (basilica) of St Mary Major on the Esquiline Hill in Rome was built shortly afterwards to celebrate her motherhood. This is the oldest church in the West that is dedicated to Our Lady.The title “Mother of God” may seem technical or even excessive; but it emphasises the central truth of the Incarnation, that Jesus Christ was not only a true man, but God also; and not only God, but man born of a woman.

(Blessed Frédéric Janssoone (1838 - 1916))

He was born in Flanders, the youngest of thirteen children. When he was nine years old, his father died, and he left school to help support his mother, until her death in 1861. He then joined the Franciscans and became a priest. After serving as a military chaplain and preaching in the Holy Land, he was sent to Canada on a fund-raising tour in 1881, settling there permanently in 1888. By his preaching and his writing he led many people to bear authentic witness to the Gospel and share his closeness to Christ.

2015-07-29T20:01:48ZThu 6 Augusthttp://www.universalis.com/Europe.Poland/20150806/
The Transfiguration of the Lord

The Transfiguration of the Lord

The Transfiguration of the Lord can sound embarrassingly magical. Jesus goes up onto a mountain and his clothes become dazzlingly white. Prophets appear and talk to him. And then it is all over and Jesus tells his disciples to say nothing.We should hold on to the absurdity of the incident. There is simply no reason for all this to have happened. In particular, there is no reason to put it into a gospel – the evangelist makes no capital out of it, it is simply there.And this is the strength of the Transfiguration as an historical incident. There is no reason for anyone to have invented it. It is not central to the Christian case. It is not used to win arguments. There is only one reason to put it into the Gospel, and that is because it happened. It is one of those cases of the evangelists writing things down without knowing why they were important, and their very puzzlement is what makes the story so convincing.Why, then, did it happen? Surely so that we could see and understand that Jesus is at once one of the prophets and the one that was prophesied by them; and that he is God, and lives for all eternity in a blaze of dazzling and unapproachable light.The true miracle of the Transfiguration is not the shining face or the white garments, but the fact that for the rest of the time Jesus hid his glory so well.See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

Friday of week 18 in Ordinary Time, or Saints Sixtus II, Pope, and his Companions, Martyrs
, or Saint Cajetan, Priest
, or Blessed Edmund Bojanowski

Sixtus was elected Pope in 257. Twelve months later, on 6th August, as he was celebrating Mass in the catacomb of St Calixtus, he was seized by the authorities (it was the time of Valerian’s persecution) and beheaded along with four of his deacons. He was buried in the same catacomb.St Laurence, another deacon, was captured and executed four days later.We know most of the details of this martyrdom from a letter of St Cyprian, who was himself martyred later in the same year.See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

(St Cajetan (1480 - 1547))

He was born in Vicenza and became a priest at the age of 36. He worked hard for the poor and the sick and for the reform of the Church; with this last aim in mind, he founded a congregation of secular priests which became known as the Theatines. These had three functions: preaching, the administration of the sacraments, and the celebration of the liturgy.He encouraged the growth of pawn-shops as a means of helping the poor out of temporary financial difficulties and keeping them out of the hands of usurers. His congregation also cared for incurable syphilitics (a particularly virulent form of syphilis was sweeping Europe, having been imported from the Caribbean by Columbus’s men).His example encouraged many others on the path to active sanctity. He said [in a letter to Elisabeth Porto]: “Do not receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament so that you may use him as you judge best, but give yourself to him and let him receive you in this Sacrament, so that he himself, God your saviour, may do to you and through you whatever he wills.”See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

(Bl. Nicholas Postgate (1598 - 1679))

Nicholas Postgate was born around 1598 at Kirkdale House, Egton, one of the children of James and Margaret Postgate. His father died in 1602 leaving his widow with four young children to bring up. His mother was fined several times for non-attendance at the parish church before her death in 1624. The influence of missionary priests in the area probably led to Nicholas leaving home in 1621 to attend the training college for Catholic priests at Douai in northern France. Ordained priest on 2 April 1629 and knowing that he faced a sentence of death if he was caught, he returned to England on 29 June 1630.His first home was at Saxton near Tadcaster, later moving to Holderness in East Yorkshire. After the death of Lady Dunbar in 1659 he is believed to have gone to Everingham. He was over 60 years of age when he returned to his native moors and settled in a small thatched cottage at Ugthorpe near Whitby. Here he lived in virtual poverty serving the Catholics of the whole of the North Yorkshire moors from northern Cleveland to well south of Whitby and inland to Pickering. In 1664 he wrote to the President of the English College at Douai that during his 34 years working in Yorkshire he had performed 226 marriages, baptised 593 infants and buried 719 dead. He also brought 2,400 persons into the Catholic Church.On 8 December 1678 Father Postgate walked from Red Barn Farm at Littlebeck to baptise the infant son of Matthew and Mary Lythe. Unfortunately John Reeves, an Excise Collector from Whitby, decided to organise a search at Red Barn Farm in the hope of finding a connection with the Titus Oates Plot. Arriving as the baptism was taking place and finding Catholic books, relics, wafers etc, he arrested Father Postgate together with Matthew Lythe and two other farmers.The following day after appearing before Magistrate Sir William Cayley, at Brompton, he was sent to York to await trial. The trial was lengthy and in 1679 he was indicted for high treason for being a Catholic priest. The death of the 83 year old priest took place on 7 August 1679 at the Knavesmire, York, where he was hung, drawn and quartered, which the Law inflicted on Catholic priests.Ever since his death, Father Nicholas Postgate has been honoured not only by local Catholics but by families who have moved abroad. On 22 November 1987, along with 84 other martyrs, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II.

Saint Dominic, Priest

He was born in Castile (part of modern Spain) and became a canon of the cathedral of Osma. He accompanied his bishop (Diego de Azevedo) in a mission of preaching against the Albigensian heresy, which was then strong in southern France. While the official missions lived in formality and splendour, Dominic and Diego lived in extreme poverty, and prepared with great diligence for the debates that they held with their opponents. When the suppression of Albigensianism was undertaken by invasion and war of a particularly savage kind, Dominic continued to try to preach and persuade.In 1216 he founded the Order of Preachers, dedicated to saving souls by preaching and persuasion. Like the Franciscans, founded a few years before, the Dominicans put great importance on poverty, both of the individual and of the community, and of the need to be involved directly in the world while still living some form of monastic life. At a time when the settled Benedictine monasteries had grown into great and rich institutions, this was a revolutionary and to some a subversive concept. The Friars made a lasting impact on the life of mediaeval Europe, and the Dominicans in particular altered the course of intellectual history by making a well-thought-out and rational response to the new learning that was appearing as long-forgotten thinkers such as Aristotle became known once more in the Christian West.Dominic died at Bologna on 6th August 1221.See the article in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

(Saint Mary of the Cross (1842 - 1909))

Mary MacKillop was born in Melbourne and worked as a governess and a teacher to support her family. In 1866 she founded St Joseph’s School, the first free Catholic school in Australia. With Father Julian Tenison Woods she founded an order of nuns, the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart. They opened many schools and other charitable institutions, and continue to this day. She was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on 17 October 2010: the first Australian saint.See also the web site of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart and the article in Wikipedia.

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

She was born into a practising Jewish family. She had a distinguished career as a philosopher and received a doctorate at the University of Freiburg, but her academic career was impeded because she was a woman.Reading the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Ávila brought about her conversion to Catholicism and she was baptized on 1 January 1922. She taught at a Dominican girls’ school and studied Catholic philosophy. She became a lecturer at the Institute for Pedagogy at Münster but was thrown out of her post in 1933 as a result of the Nazi régime’s anti-Semitic legislation. She entered a Carmelite monastery in Cologne and took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Her order moved her to the Netherlands to keep her safe from the growing Nazi threat. While a Carmelite she wrote an important philosophical book, seeking to combine the phenomenology of her former teacher Edmund Husserl with the philosophy of Aquinas, and she also wrote on St John of the Cross.On 20 July 1942 the Dutch Bishops’ Conference had a statement read in all churches condemning Nazi racism. In retaliation the authorities ordered the arrest of all Jewish converts to Christianity. Teresa Benedicta was taken to Auschwitz and killed on 9 August 1942.See also the article in Wikipedia, and also an interesting article entitled Edith Stein, Apostate Saint (if the link still survives) on the issues raised for Jews and Christians by Saint Teresa Benedicta’s life and death.

(Saint Nathy)

He is the patron saint of the diocese of Achonry, where he founded a church and monastery. See this article for a little more information.

(Saint Felim)

He flourished in the early part of the sixth century and is the first known Bishop of Kilmore. He is patron saint of the diocese.